Monday, March 20, 2017

The First Woman CEO of a Major Cruise Line Has Just Designed the World's Coolest New Cruise Ship

Lisa Lutoff-Perlo is the first woman to be named CEO of a major cruise line, Celebrity Cruises. That's an accomplishment in itself, but Lisa has gone way beyond that by also designing a new 2,900-passenger ship that is scheduled to launch next year.New ship will revolutionize the cruise world

The new cruise ship is called Celebrity Edge and is expected to revolutionize the cruise world. Lutoff-Perlo has led a team for two years in the design of an innovative new cruise ship that will have features never before seen. For example, it has what they call a 'magic carpet,' which is an expanded area on the side of the ship that travels from deck to deck, serving as anything from a restaurant seating area to an extension of the ship's pool.

Making waves

Lutoff-Perlo has had many firsts in the cruise ship business, some of which resulted from her 'making waves,' or asserting herself. Lutoff-Perlo refers to this as smart disruption. As she explains it, “Smart disruption takes courage but it also takes know-how to make the right kind of difference." In 2015, Lutoff-Perlo was appointed the first American woman captain of a mega-cruise ship. Now she is the first woman CEO of a major cruise line.

Lutoff-Perlo spent 32 years working in many areas of the company before being promoted. She is also the only woman on the five-person executive committee charged with designing the new cruise ship. What does she like most about this? "I get the opportunity to have the loudest voice at the table when we are thinking about all of these things, and I get the opportunity to create these new experiences and these new ships."

Too bad the public has to wait until next year to see what Lutoff-Perlo and her team have created!